Reshaping and Modeling the Criminal Justice System through Science, Technology, and Systems Analysis

SES-1557082Bruce HoffmanOhio UniversityThis project uses archival materials from the Presidents Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice（1965-67）and interviews with Commission workers to investigate the use of empirical science and technologies of systems analysis to rationalize and reform traditional criminal justice practice.由于设立了资助刑事司法研究的联邦机构，委员会被认为是刑事司法和犯罪学科学组织方面的一个决定性时刻，但委员会的其他贡献却不太受重视，包括其对刑事司法教育的影响，建立一个有别于社会学的刑事司法学科领域，并利用系统分析建立刑事司法程序的模式，作为一个综合的该系统的各个组成部分为实现控制犯罪的共同目标而协调一致。该项目将对预防犯罪委员会进行第一次持续分析，调查在委员会期间以及在委员会成立后不久，其他团体如何提出、谈判、包装和颁布各种预防犯罪和刑事司法愿景;如何通过委员会九个工作队小组的成员与工作人员之间的组织动态形成知识生产;以及科学和技术特别工作组的具体影响，该工作组将系统分析带到了“民防”和“打击犯罪的战争”领域。“该项目对科学和技术的关注，对委员会以简单的方式扩展伟大社会议程的解释提出了微妙的挑战。它探讨了最初委员会对贫困和社会因果关系的关注如何从委员会的刑事司法过程的映射和模型中消失，预测和塑造随后的方法和政策，并有助于照亮刑事司法技术随后延伸到日常生活中。对跨越16个月的会议的大量记录的分析增加了我们对科学咨询报告的理解，显示了对科学目标和政治利益的不同理解是如何为感知的受众进行谈判和包装的。 该项目也是委员会工作人员保存对司法实践的记忆和当代评价的最后机会，他们的职业生涯始于犯罪问题委员会的可能性，见证了刑事司法实践的前所未有的转变。该项目是基于三种类型的数据的实证收集和分析。 首先，本研究将利用当代科学研究的工具，对犯罪委员会的公开文件进行仔细的文本分析，将这些技术报告解释为公开表演，通过这些公开表演，科学的可信度得到了传达和维护。 第二，对官方账户的分析将辅之以对奈良网站收集的内部账户和相关藏品的分析。 据信，这些档案中有各种相关文件，包括委员会会议记录、咨询小组的说明、内部信件和备忘录、报告草稿以及刑事司法程序的早期地图和模型。 公开文件和内部文件都将使用类似的编码机制进行编码，以便出现更大的主题和发展。 第三，调查员将设法接触与委员会有关的所有工作人员，并对他们进行录音或录像访谈。 这些访谈的目的是收集在犯罪委员会内跨多个组织角色和立场，可以与档案文件和其他访谈交叉引用的回忆行动，愿望和紧张局势的一般观点。 调查员还将设法记录和使参与者深入了解所提出的系统模式与随后的刑事司法和犯罪学发展之间以前未被认识到的联系，以及他们对后来发展的解释和评价。该网站将利用科学和技术研究的技巧来翻译该项目有关科学和刑事司法系统起源的中心主题。在对美国大规模监禁政策和制度化刑事司法对种族不平等和民众抗议的反应的高度关注和批评的时候，该项目和网站作为一个重要的“现在的历史”，说明了犯罪学科学和刑事司法实践的当代配置是如何出现的，并阐明了未采取的替代路径。该研究还培训了一个本科生团队的档案研究，组织和主要源文件的分析，以及在专业会议上的研究开发和演示。

SES-1557082Bruce HoffmanOhio UniversityThis project uses archival materials from the Presidents Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice (1965-67) and interviews with commission staff to investigate the use of empirical science and technologies of systems analysis to rationalize and reshape traditional criminal justice practice. Regarded as a defining moment in the organization of criminal justice and criminological science due to its creation of federal institutions to fund criminal justice research, other contributions of the commission have been less appreciated, including its impact on criminal justice education by creating a disciplinary field of criminal justice distinct from sociology and its use of systems analysis to create models of the criminal justice process as an integrated system whose varied components were coordinated towards the common goal of crime control. This project will conduct the first sustained analysis of the Crime Commission, investigating how diverse visions of crime prevention and criminal justice were introduced, negotiated, packaged, and enacted over the course of the commission and by other groups in its immediate aftermath; how knowledge production was shaped through organizational dynamics between commissioners and the staff of the commissions nine task force panels; and the specific impact of the Science and Technology Task Force, which brought systems analysis to the field of "civil defense" and the "war on crime." The project's focus on science and technology provides a nuanced challenge to interpretations of the commission as extending Great Society agendas in uncomplicated ways. It explores how initial commission concerns with poverty and social causation dropped out of the commission's mappings and models of the criminal justice process, anticipating and shaping subsequent approaches and policy, and helps illuminate the subsequent extension of criminal justice technologies into everyday life. The analysis of extensive transcripts of meetings spanning a sixteenth month period adds to our understanding of the construction of scientific advisory reports, showing how diverse understandings of scientific aims and political interests are negotiated and packaged for perceived audiences. The project also serves as the last opportunity to preserve the memories and contemporary evaluations of justice practices by commission staff whose careers that began with the possibilities of the Crime Commission and witnessed unprecedented transformations in criminal justice practices. The project is based in the empirical collection and analysis of three types of data. First, the study will use the tools of contemporary science studies to engage in a careful textual analysis of the public documents of the crime commission, interpreting these technical reports as public performances through which scientific credibility is communicated and maintained. Second, the analysis of official accounts will be complemented by the analysis of internal accounts collected at NARA sites and related collections. The archives are believed to contain a variety of relevant documents, including transcripts from commission meetings, notes from advisory panels, internal letters and memoranda, drafts of reports, and early maps and models of the criminal justice process. Both the public documents and internal documents will be coded using similar coding mechanisms enabling larger themes and developments to emerge. Third, the investigator will seek to contact and conduct audiotaped or videotaped interviews of all available staff connected with the commission. The goal of these interviews is to collect general perspectives of recollected operations, aspirations, and tensions within the crime commission across multiple organizational roles and standpoints, which can be cross-referenced with archival documents and other interviews. The investigator will also seek to record and gain participants' insights into previously unrecognized connections between the systems model being set forth and the subsequent development of criminal justice and criminology, as well as their interpretation and evaluation of later developments.The project will design an interactive website designed for classroom use. The site will use techniques of science and technology studies to translate the project's central themes concerning science and the origins of the criminal justice system. At a time of heightened interest and criticism of US policies of mass incarceration and institutionalized criminal justice responses to racial inequality and popular protest, the project and website serves as an important "history of the present" that contextualizes how contemporary configurations of criminological science and criminal justice practices emerged and illuminates alternative paths not taken. The study also trains a team of undergraduates in archival research, the organization and analysis of primary source documents, and the development and presentation of research at professional meetings.